


L-Space

by GayDemonicDisaster (scrapheapchallenge)



Series: Flaming Nonsense [2]
Category: Discworld - Terry Pratchett, Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett, rincewind - Fandom
Genre: Discworld References, Ineffable Husbands (Good Omens), Ineffable Idiots (Good Omens), L space, M/M, good omens - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-12
Updated: 2019-11-18
Packaged: 2021-01-29 15:21:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 4,941
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21412357
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/scrapheapchallenge/pseuds/GayDemonicDisaster
Summary: The Late Great Sir Terry Pratchett often expounded on the complexities of L-Space linking time, space and universes, and oft described bookshops exactly like Aziraphale's as being a conduit or portal to access it. Aziraphale encounters unexpected guests, and Crowley has a guilty secret about certain shenanigans.
Relationships: Aziraphale & Crowley (Good Omens), Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens), The Librarian & Rincewind, The Luggage & Rincewind
Series: Flaming Nonsense [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1658101
Comments: 132
Kudos: 176





	1. the M word

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Aziraphale encounters an uninvited red haired guest

Aziraphale sipped his Earl Grey tea delicately as he pored over the latest PBFA newsletter, deftly circling various book fairs around London that he’d like to attend over the coming months, when the hairs on the back of his neck began to prickle. He paused, pen poised over the next page, and gently lowered his teacup to the desk, listening carefully.  
  
There was a subtle change in the air, and he could _feel_ his books were unsettled. Something was awry. He glanced over at the expanse of shelves and stacks. It didn’t feel demonic, and Crowley knew better than to mess with his books anyway, so he doubted it was the demon up to mischief by sneaking up on him. He placed the pen down and stood warily, trying to pin down what the sensation was. It was familiar in some way, but he couldn’t recall why.  
  
The books shivered subtly and he had a flash of memory, smoke, heat, were they upset remembering the undone chaos of the fire perhaps? He reached out to soothe the nearest spine, but the sensation it gave back wasn’t fear. The flames it reminded him of in his mind’s eye involved ancient scrolls. And then he remembered where he had felt the sensation before – Alexandria.

He'd tried to save as many texts as he could, but was overcome by the flames. If Crowley hadn’t burst in and dragged him out, shielding him with his fireproof wings, he would certainly have discorporated. As it was he was badly injured. Crowley cared for him for days afterwards, distraught, explaining that it had been Hastur who had started the fire at the great library, and some of the fire that had injured the angel had been hellfire. He’d rather forget that, no wonder he’d buried it deep.  
  
But as the library had burned, he’d felt the same sensations, something strange happening in time and space, and as he’d fallen to the ground, overwhelmed by smoke, he’d glimpsed other shapes in the dancing flames than Crowley, scurrying amongst the shelves in a panic, he could have sworn they were removing scrolls as they ran.

Pages rustled, bringing him back to the present, and a sensation of pressure. His ears popped, and he felt the tickle of dust cascading down onto his face from above. He raised his head…

… Into a face that looked like it was made up of old inner tubes, it smiled at him, an enormous friendly grin in a face like old leather, surrounded by a halo of Crowley-red hair. The hair didn’t stop at the head though, and covered the entire creature.

“You’re a, a… Mo…..”

A hand clamped gently but firmly over his mouth from behind.

“Nononononono don’t say the M word”

His eyes swivelled madly in his head as his assailant sidled into view, not removing his hand from over the angel’s mouth. It was a scruffy looking man possibly in his 30s, skinny, haggard, with a pretense of a stubbly beard populating his face, in threadbare robes spangled with stars. It looked like not just a costume, not just a cheap costume, but a cheap and very old and worn out costume. It was topped off by a ridiculous edifice of a hat with “WIZZZARD” embroidered on it in fraying gold thread.


	2. A rose by any other name

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> … would hit as hard.

The man’s goggling watery blue eyes stared into his, slightly manic. “Ok, I’m going to take my hand away now, but just please don’t say the M word, ok? He doesn’t like it, ok?” Aziraphale nodded carefully and the hand was released.   
“would, um, ‘primate’ be acceptable?” he whispered conspiratorially to the newcomer, who considered for a moment then nodded. “Orangutan is correct, Ape is acceptable, Primate will do, but absolutely never the M word, or ‘Mr Pongo’ either.” He whispered back. “He’s never forgiven the Archchancellor for that one. But really, he’s the Librarian.”

The ape was currently sitting on the top of one of the bookshelves, and stroking the spines of the books, soothing them with a gentle touch after the abrupt arrival had upset them. Aziraphale, initially alarmed at a wild creature near his precious tomes, relaxed as he noted the respectful way in which the orangutan handled them. He coughed politely and straightened his bow tie.

“Ahem, pleased to meet you, Mr. Librarian. My name is Mr Fell” he extended his hand, and it was enveloped in a soft warm gentle grip like soft leather.   
“Oook”  
Aziraphale’s glance slipped sideways to the human who shrugged. “Hello” he supplied, helpfully.   
“And you are…?” he questioned the costumed person.   
“Rincewind” The man’s eyes were darting about, as if seeking danger in every corner, poised to flee.   
“I see. Would you chaps like some tea while you tell me what all this is about?”  
Rincewind nodded. “If you have any bananas as well that’d go down nicely.”  
Aziraphale indicated the sofa for them and bustled to the kitchen. There were no bananas, but he was ever the picture of a polite host and miracled one into being anyway.

After placing the teapot, cups, saucers, teaspoons, sugar cubes and milk on the table for them to help themselves, and handing the banana directly to the Librarian, who accepted it with good grace, Aziraphale settled into the swivelling chair at his desk and took a sip of his own tea to steady his nerves. “So, gentlemen, how did you come to materialise in my bookshop?”

Rincewind looked shifty. “You don’t know?”  
Aziraphale shook his head.   
“You do… run this bookshop don’t you?”  
A nod.   
Rincewind and the Librarian exchanged looks, and gazed around at the chaos of the stacks, the meandering avenues of books delving deep into the back of the building, haphazard steps up and down, dead ends and labyrinthine avenues of shelves.   
“And you don’t know how we’d have got here…?”  
Aziraphale gave an exasperated sigh and shook his head again.   
“That’s rather why I asked you the question” he said, a little sharper than he intended.   
The Librarian nibbled his banana quietly, and nodded at Rincewind.

“Have you ever heard of L-space?” began the scrawny human.   
Aziraphale thought for a moment, something at the back of his memory stirred vaguely. Oh.   
It was something that the libraries of Heaven, and presumably hell, had access to. He’d learned about it back in the days before the world was made, but had never considered it to be something relevant to the mortal plane. He’d never thought it would work in this world, and had never tried. He’d put it from his mind many thousands of years ago.  
“But humans can’t access L-space, surely?”  
Rincewind shrugged. “I can, if the Librarian leads the way.” He stood and wandered to the window, gazing out at the street then leapt back in alarm as a car passed the window. “What was THAT?” he yelped, hiding behind the nearest book shelf.   
  
“What?”  
“That thing that went past? It looks like Ankh-Morpork out there but that certainly isn’t from our time.”   
“Oh, are you time travellers of some sort?”  
“Uh, sometimes – mainly library travellers. It’s a bit complicated. Where on the disc are we?”  
Aziraphale looked thoroughly confused. “Are you flat earthers?” he looked disapproving.   
Rincewind was equally baffled in return. “Well the earth IS flat, I know, I’ve been to the circumfence and I’ve dropped off the bloody thing!”   
Aziraphale paused a moment, considering the madman. “The world, this world at the very least, is very distinctly round.”   
Rincewind snorted in derision. “All the water’d fall off the bottom!”  
“Gravity”  
“huh?”

It was at this point that the bell above the door rang and Crowley sauntered in, and paused, eyeing the 120lb primate occupying his usual seat on the sofa. He raised a quizzical eye at Aziraphale, who shrugged in return.

“I don’t even know where to start here, angel” Crowley commented, stalked past the trio into the kitchenette, and returned with the whisky decanter and a tumbler, poured himself a generous measure, and flopped down onto the carpet.   
“So would you care to tell me why there’s a monkey on your sofa?”  
  



	3. Wossnames

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> *May contain potatoes

Crowley came to a few minutes later sporting a rather impressive black eye, to find Aizraphale dabbing his face with a wet tea towel, whilst the scrawny human was placating the red-haired creature with a few more bananas that Aziraphale had miracled up in a flurry of peacekeeping.

The scruffy human hove into his field of vision after a moment. “Hi, Rincewind, nice to meet you, please don’t say the M word again, this is my, uh, boss, the Librarian. He’s an orangutan, an ape, never the m-word, ok?” Crowley nodded weakly. He felt like he’d been kicked in the face by a horse.  
“Uh, my apologies Mr Librarian.”  
The orangutan gave him a steady look, and bit off another bite of banana a little more aggressively than was necessary. 

Rincewind and Aziraphale helped Crowley to his feet, and while the librarian decamped to the top of a handy bookshelf with the remainder of his bunch of bananas, keeping a disgruntled eye on the demon, Crowley collapsed in an ungainly pile of angles on one end of the sofa, while Rincewind perched awkwardly at the other.

“Crowley, dearest, these gentlemen were telling me they came here through L-space, a concept I have a faint familiarity with from a very” (a pointed look here) “… long time ago, but never on this ethereal plane on this world. They are insisting that their world is flat, and honestly I’m having a little trouble getting to grips with it all.”  
  
Crowley had laughed at the flat world comment, and then a long forgotten memory sidled up to his subconscious, thrust a note into its metaphorical hand, and ran away. He stopped smiling and his eyes went wide.  
“Oh.”  
“Oh shit.”  
“Oh _fuck_.”  
  
Argh. He put his face into his hands. No no nonononoooooo. Damn it. It was the M25 all over again – seemed like a fun idea at the time and now look where that’d got him.

Aziraphale looked at him quizzically. “Crowley, do you know something about all this?”  
Crowley looked up. A guilty look passed across his face, and then came back and camped there.  
“The big hiss” he muttered. “I did a bit of ropey filling-in around the two picosecond mark, didn’t think anyone would notice. It was meant as a JOKE. Look, I was bored of stars, stars, bloody stars, all the same, gas giants, white dwarfs, pulsars, supernovae, and I just wanted a bit of a laugh, so I kind of had a play, just a little pocket dimension off to the side. There was a bunch of firmament going spare, don’t ask where it came from, I didn’t, and I thought why not? I thought it’d be _fun_…”  
  
Aziraphale and the Librarian looked blank, but Rincewind STARED, his jaw hanging, at Crowley.  
“You!”  
Crowley flinched.  
“You were the one who installed a few basic physical formulas then ran and left the creator to deal with the rest!”  
Aziraphale and the Librarian exchanged equally confused glances.  
Crowley was staring confused at Rincewind. “Oi, are you a demon or something?”  
It was Rincewind’s turn to look guilty.  
“Only temporarily, not any more, it was all a big mistake really, wrong place wrong time..” (here Crowley nodded like he understood) “..I went through the door marked wossnames and ended up in a circle, but it all got sorted out, I’m human again now, I can’t just snap my fingers and do demonic…” He had snapped his fingers.  
  
And, by sheer coincidence, the luggage chose that exact moment to land in the middle of the bookshop. It opened its lid. There were potatoes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This section draws on events in the Discworld book "Eric" by Sir Terry Pratchett, co-author of Good Omens. I literally got as far as this chapter before remembering that Rincewind has something in common with Crowley - he too was at least temporarily a demon, and never intended to be. 
> 
> I nearly forgot the luggage. 
> 
> But I left the parrot out on purpose. 
> 
> To get some of the jokes in this chapter, you'll need to go and read Eric.
> 
> Also, Crowley's expression as he remembers the Big Hiss looks very much like this: [ https://media1.tenor.com/images/7de507fff8fde15151a3c81c8b673da1/tenor.gif?itemid=11054707](https://media1.tenor.com/images/7de507fff8fde15151a3c81c8b673da1/tenor.gif?itemid=11054707)


	4. Oook*

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> *Ook ooook eeek ook.

Aziraphale leapt backwards, which wouldn’t have been quite so bad if he hadn’t forgotten that he started from a sitting position, and so ended up in a jumble of legs and furniture as he tipped over his chair in his panic. Crowley only narrowly avoided going full-snake, although his eyes did get significantly snake-ier and he hissed in alarm. “What isssss that?” he yelled.  
  
“Oh, it’s just my luggage, it follows me everywhere” Rincewind said, in the tone of voice that implied that he wasn’t entirely happy about it either but couldn’t do much about it.   
“Itsss got legssssss!”  
“Yes, that’s how it gets around, well that and the magic. Its sapient pearwood”  
“And potatoessss?”  
“Uh, I … like … potatoes…?” Rincewind hesitated, embarrassed. “It also has clean laundry, and several barbarians, possibly some basilisk if the shreds of skin on the lid were anything to go by. It has a habit of making sure that endangered species stay that way.”

Crowley, noting that the damned box seemed disinclined to attack, and had retracted it’s many legs into whatever dimension they lived, relaxed slightly. Aziraphale awkwardly scrambled up from the floor, nursing a few bruises. “I think you two had better start at the very beginning” he said, firmly, as he righted his office chair.

Rincewind sighed and sat back down on the sofa next to Crowley. The Librarian swung down from the bookshelf, nabbed a spare cushion off the sofa and placing it next to the coffee table, made himself comfortable, then poured himself some tea. Crowley retrieved the whisky decanter and poured himself a generous measure, met Aziraphale’s gaze, and poured another for the angel. After seeing the miserable look on Rincewind’s face, he grabbed a spare teacup and poured some out for him as well.

Rincewind took a gulp and coughed. “We started out in the University library, I’m uh, a Wizard” Crowley stared at him levelly. “You don’t say?” he said sarcastically, and glared at the hat, Rincewind shifted uncomfortably. “Well actually I’m the lecturer in Cruel and Unusual Geography, which intersects quite neatly with my work in the library.” He carried on.

“The other day the Librarian had been off in the stacks locating some books on interdimensional magic for Stibbons, he works in the High Energy Magic building, which meant the Librarian had to delve into L space on a bit of an expedition as strictly speaking, those books aren’t in _our_ library, so he had to borrow from elsewhen.”  
“Oook.” The ape agreed.   
“Quite. And several years ago he experienced a time related book incident relating to the actions of the prophet Brutha – the library of Ephebe. He was in L space at the time and picked up on the smell of burning, he followed the trail through the stacks and came out in another time, in the library at Ephebe, just after the fire started, gathered as many scrolls as he could and brought them back to Unseen University for safekeeping.”

Aziraphale gave the Librarian a peculiar look. His head hurt slightly.

“And the other day, when delving in L space again, he smelled the same thing. But not in our universe, it’s Ephebe all over again, in your universe, but I don’t think in this time, he came back for me to help carry books but we can’t find the actual place, we got lost trying to find it and the stacks led us to you instead, there’s a _when_ that this place is also on fire, but that seems very confused, and it wasn’t what we were aiming for, it’s another place and another time, but it still led us to you, so here we are.” He shrugged and sipped his whisky, pulled a face, and reached for the tea again instead.

Aziraphale rubbed at his arm and glanced at Crowley, who hissed under his breath “Hassssturrr”, with a look on his face as if he’d just smelled something a dog had left behind on the pavement. Aziraphale was starting to get an idea of what was going on.   
  
“I think I know what’s happening – you picked up on our library of Alexandria, I’m guessing something like your Ephebe, and because I was there, it’s led you to me for some reason, presumably to help, except I _tried_ at the time, I failed. Crowley had to rescue me.”   
  
“Oooook, ook oook ook.” The librarian pointed out at length. Demon and angel looked to Rincewind for an explanation.   
“He said it doesn’t matter, you got there too late, we can use L space to go back earlier in time and rescue the important works – and you’re the one who knows what those were, right?”   
Aziraphale brightened and nodded. “Of course, what a capital idea!”

The Librarian knuckled up and began ambling around the shop, he first made his way to the carpet at the centre that concealed Aziraphale’s circle, sniffed at it suspiciously, flung a knowing glance in Aziraphale’s direction, then carried on, sniffing along the stacks, getting a feel for the place. He ambled around a few more shelves, and a short distance down a couple of narrow corridors leading toward the back of the shop, then returned with a large grin, and patted Aziraphale approvingly on his soft white curls. Aziraphale glanced at Rincewind who smiled at him.   
“Ook ooook oook eek ook ook.”  
“He’s very impressed with how perfectly you set up the layout for this place, you’ve got all the conduits already in place ready to link up with L space – was that on purpose?”

Aziraphale looked uncomfortable “Just librarian tradition really, a hangover from my days, uh, elsewhere, in my old job. They did things differently there, I saw no reason to set things up any differently down here, I kind of forgot what the purpose was after a while. I’ve never messed with L space since I was, er, at my previous employment.” He stood up and fetched a long ball of string from the lower drawer on his desk, went to one of the pillars holding up the mezzanine level at the centre of the shop, and tied one end off securely. “Lets get started then, I suppose.”


	5. Bananas and Baguettes, flaming baguettes.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which our heroes come across an old friend.

The Librarian led the way with Aziraphale at his side, followed by Rincewind in a sort of nervous sideways scuttle, Crowley with his usual nonchalant saunter that gave him the look of someone with too many vertebrae and only a vague idea of how legs worked, or the slightly menacing love child of Freddie Mercury and Mick Jagger. The Luggage brought up the tail end of the party.

Crowley eyed it warily. “Does it like bananas too?” he asked the Wizard. “D’you know, I’ve never tried. It likes beer.” Crowley snapped his fingers and caught a banana out of the air. “Oi!” he called at the lumbering luggage, and tossed the banana in an easy underhand throw at the ambling trunk, which opened its lid with a creak, caught the banana, and slammed shut with an abrupt snap. Rincewind shrugged. “I guess that’s another for the list of likes then.”  
“How can you tell?” enquired Crowley, unable to discern any emotion on the wood of the chest.  
“Well it hasn’t eaten _you_ yet” the wizard replied with a one-shouldered shrug.  
“It eats demons?”  
“It’s been known to.”  
Crowley sauntered a little faster.

Aziraphale was paying attention to the careful calculated movements of the orangutan, memories trickling back as he felt his way around the corners of the many dimensions of L space, trying not to look too hard at the shelves at 90 degrees to the usual, up above his head, as it made his eyes ache. “I suppose we had better prioritise what we’re ollecting then. We’ll need Aeschylus, Euripides, Sopholcles, Theophrastus and Calliamachus of course, then Apollonius, Eratothenes, Aristophanes and Aristrachus, can’t forget him – his definitive texts of the Homeric poems are most important.”

The Librarian nodded, distractedly.  
  
“And Didymus Chalcenterus, Zenodotus – fabulous gentleman, old Zenodotus, such a lovely chap. He alphebetised the whole library system, no idea why no one had thought to do that before, I lent him a hand of course, it was a major undertaking. He was such a picky person though, terribly fussy” The angel sounded rather fond of him. “Uh, Aziraphale?” Crowley called from behind them, interrupting his train of thought. “Thought you said your name was Fell?” queried Rincewind. “Nom de plume” the angel replied shortly. “I didn’t know who you were to start with. What is it Crowley?” He looked back and saw the demon frozen against a bookshelf, staring at some things scuttling in the shadows behind them. “Uh, we’ve got company”

Rincewind glanced over. “They’re just kickstool crabs, nothing to worry about, they won’t bother you unless you bother them, they graze on dropped prose and indices, keep the place tidy. You need to keep an eye out for the .303 bookworms though, they’ll go through a shelf so fast they’ll ricochet off the wall and can sting a bit when they bounce off you with that kind of velocity.” 

Rincewind’s stomach grumbled. “Hang on a tic”, he wandered over to the Luggage and nudged it with his foot, it opened obligingly and the wizard fished a baguette out of its depths, then began to chew thoughtfully, before spotting the others staring at him. Crowley stared at the luggage. Rincewind swallowed hurriedly “sorry, did you want one?” He fished another and offered it to Crowley who shook his head, but Aziraphale accepted gratefully. “What else is in the damned jumped up suitcase?” Crowley demanded.  
“Oh, everything really, most things you can think of, it depends what you need at the time. It’s most tuned into me, but if it likes you it’ll give you what it thinks you want usually. Just never try to touch the gold, that’s a trap. If you put your dirty laundry in there it comes back cleaned and pressed though.”

The faint smell of smoke assailed their nostrils as they continued and as they rounded the next corner, got a glimpse of the first flames, and a familiar figure silhouetted against them…  
“Hassssturrrr” hissed Crowley. The Librarian’s face curled into a snarl, displaying surprisingly vicious fangs. Rincewind fished in the luggage and came out with a half brick in a sock.  
  


In Aziraphale’s hand, his baguette burst into celestial flame.  
“Oh… _bother_” he sighed.


	6. A hail of improbability

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The luggage gives you what it thinks you want, it has a twisted sense of humour, just like Crowley.

The luggage was still open from Rincewind grabbing his half-brick-in-a-sock weapon, Crowley stared at it, glanced at Rincewind, then plunged his hand into the depths of the trunk and groped thinking “give me a weapon”

The Luggage delved into his mind and provided.

His hand emerged holding a starting handle from a vintage Bentley. Ok…

Aziraphale hurled the flaming baguette towards Hastur, then glanced back. “Crowley, throw me a blessed WEAPON!”

Crowley plunged his hand back in, and came out wielding a potato. He stared at it a split second then tossed it at Aziraphale, who caught it, puzzled. It immediately burst into celestial flame. He looked exasperated at Crowley and flung the flaming potato in Hastur’s direction, catching him on the head with a dull thump, “a WEAPON Crowley for heaven’s sake, not a VEGETABLE!”

Crowley delved again, the luggage merely riffled through the mischievousness of his demonic mind and decided to go with what _that_ wanted subconsciously instead. He withdrew a stapler. He tossed it to Aziraphale who caught it with an irritated look, it flamed and was thrown, bouncing off Hastur’s nose. It was followed immediately after by a rolled up newspaper which fell short, still flaming, a pair of chopsticks which landed with surprising velocity, one stabbing through the demon’s foot, pinning him to the floor, where he was bombarded in quick succession by a flaming rubber duck, a croissant, pillow, toilet brush, cocktail umbrella, inflatable guitar, large decorative fan, survey flag, lava lamp, rubber chicken (which honked sadly as it flew through the air on fire), a carved wooden statue of a crocodile, a wheel of cheese (dripping molten cheese as it flamed through the air), the broken phallus off a marble statue, a “SILENCIOS” sign from the library, a pink plastic ornamental flamingo (now a flaming-o), and a magnum of champagne.

Each flew flaming through the air with varying degrees of accuracy in quick succession, some making contact with the demon, others falling short, whilst Hastur looked on in bafflement, dodging the missiles as best he could.

Aziraphale spun on Crowley. “Crowley that the HEAVENS are you playing at, damn you?” The demon paused, having just withdrawn a wooden leg from the Luggage, and shrugged, then tossed it to the angel, yelling “YEET!” Aziraphale caught it, ignited it, and paused. “’Yeet’?” he questioned at Crowley, who shrugged. “It means chuck it, angel.” Hastur stared at them both in incomprehension. Aziraphale sighed and threw it over his shoulder at Hastur, who had freed himself and was advancing again. The wooden leg met Hastur’s head with a satisfying THUNK. Aziraphale took two steps towards Crowley as he delved into the Luggage again, and picked him up bodily to remonstrate with him.

Crowley burst into flame, with a rather shocked expression. Aziraphale’s eyes widened in surprise, and he hastily hurled Crowley toward Hastur. Crowley snaked out mid-flight, so the demon was met with a 15 foot long flaming serpent which sunk it’s fangs into his buttock and proceeded to wrap it’s coils around him, encircling him with celestial flame and squeezing hard.

At this point, a well flung half brick in a sock made contact with the demon’s head with a satisfying thud, he went down, then felt himself being hoisted up by one leg by a surprisingly strong simian hand, which proceeded to repeatedly bounce his skull off the marble floor until he lost consciousness.

Crowley uncoiled and reverted to his humanoid form, the flame extinguishing thankfully without any seeming ill-effect. He brushed himself off and stalked over to Aziraphale. “You know I love you, Angel, but what the actual _fuck_?” Aziraphale blustered, lost for words. “I… I had no idea that you’d actually catch fire as well, dearest.” Crowley levelled a _look_ at him and turned to the Librarian.

“Right, bad guy incapacitated, what next?” The Librarian grabbed a book trolley and pushed it in his direction “Oook”. He grabbed another and rolled it towards Aziraphale, he caught it by the handle and it also burst into celestial flame. Crowley sighed. “Honestly, angel, can’t you turn that damn response off now?” “I don’t know _HOW_” wailed the angel. Crowley snatched the flaming trolley off him, whilst Rincewind reached into the Luggage and withdrew a bucket of water which he threw over the book trolley to quench it. “Perhaps you’d better direct us to the scrolls and books we need, and _I’ll_ push the trolley” the wizard suggested.

They hastily followed after the Librarian, who was knuckling ahead at speed down the aisles. Crowley sniffed the air and looked alarmed, he glanced at Aziraphale, checking he was ok, then headed off in a different direction. He spotted a familiar shape slumped on the floor in the distance, and hesitated, until he saw a glimpse of huge familiar black wings approaching the prone form of the angel of the past, and saw his previous self rush to the angel who was losing consciousness, but blearily gazing in their direction as current day Aziraphale and Rincewind gathered scrolls from the shelves, Aziraphale clearly having got his flaming tendencies under control again.

The previous Aziraphale on the floor looked at them, confused and lost consciousness as his Crowley slid to a halt over him just in time to mantle his wings over the pair of them to protect them from a fierce backdraft of flame, before lifting Aziraphale up and fleeing the building with him. Present day Crowley breathed a sigh of relief and silently wished them well, before returning to the others to help gather more scrolls.

“I’ve got all the Appolodorus and Aristophanes!” yelled Aziraphale at Rincewind. “Do you have Callimachus and Euripides?” Rincewind nodded. The Librarian knuckled back clasping a pile of scrolls from Sophocles and bundled them onto Crowley’s book trolley purloined from the L-space stacks. They hastily threw on anything else they could grab before the flames grew too big in their section to bear any longer, and beat a retreat. When they reached the border with the stacks of L-space, the Librarian heaved a huge book shelf over to break the pattern and cut off the library from the rest of the universe forever.

They paused for breath, taking in each other’s singed appearance. Rincewind’s hat was smouldering and he patted at it frantically to extinguish the embers. The librarian’s fur was frizzled in several places and Aziraphale’s coat was burned along the bottom edge. Crowley was sooty but unharmed – he was basically fireproof and his clothes spun from raw firmament so not affected by the flames except for some staining.

“So where are we putting all these then?” Rincewind queried. Crowley shrugged and looked to the Librarian, who shrugged back and looked pointedly at Aziraphale. As the pre-eminent literary expert of their universe, he would have the final say. Aziraphale gaped for a moment. “I, um, I suppose my shop is as good a place as any? I can continue to care for them far longer than any humans could, and I might be persuaded to share the odd discovery here and there with the British Library over the decades perhaps?” The Librarian nodded, and they picked up their trail, slowly pushing the trolleys back through the stacks, as the occasional ping and ricochet of a .303 bookworm bouncing off the wall echoed in the distance, and the kickstool crabs meandered between the shelves, tidying up lost prose.

They didn’t notice another Librarian in the distance with his own ball of string, tracking down a book about dragons…

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm indebted to all of you from the various Good Omens facebook groups of the Ineffable Fandom for the help with suggestions for this, I had a whale of a time writing it. You all gave such hilarious suggestions that I decided it was funniest to just fling them all in. I make no apologies for the "yeet" either. Thank you all, you know who you are, and you're awesome! <3 
> 
> *scurries off to write more GO porn now I've got the SFW stuff out of my system for a bit*


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